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Verde turned out to be the little Mexican restaurant that couldn’t.
Couldn’t make it for more than seven months, that is.
Sadly, Joseph Aguayo and Matt Avila’s affordable Downtown eatery, where handmade tortillas were the focus, closed Sunday. Word on the streets is that they weren’t getting enough evening and weekend business to keep the lights on.
Verde’s closure was the talk of the Twitterverse this weekend, where locals were lamenting its demise while also holding it up as proof that cool things can’t survive in Downtown.
I completely disagree.
Consider Matt Pool’s bangin’ restaurant right up the block (Matt’s Big Breakfast) and the nearby enclave of Sens, PastaBar, and The Turf. ASU is in session, and these other eateries are doing A-okay, as well they should. In my book, it’s not a neighborhood problem.
Honestly, I think Verde didn’t market itself enough — or really, at all. They only Tweeted a few times last month, and pretty much abandoned their Facebook efforts for the last couple months. But if they were struggling, they should’ve put themselves into social media overdrive.
I’ve also never seen or heard them advertise anywhere. In a city filled with Mexican restaurants, how does one stand out?
The Downtown Phoenix Market takes place twice a week just a stone’s throw from Verde — they could’ve had a presence there, too, if only to sell those homemade tortillas.
I’ll definitely miss Verde (this news has had me craving their pork chile verde), but I can’t imagine that space will sit vacant for long. We’ll see . . .
